The heater’s motor was seized up from a dose of BiCarb of soda so the only option was to tear it apart and rebuild it. Even the gasket betwen the heater and the body was perished but as can be seen and i have seen this on all heaters,the gasket was never fitted properly,resulting in a turned down lip.

The rat nest didn’t help air circulation

.Control levers were [pretty dirty.

Heater matrix has was blocked with more bi carb….

Rubber seals were rotten too..

black heater paint looks grey in these pictures.

Controls were stripped , bulbs changed, everything cleaned and reassembled. Should look nice in the dash, eventually.

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At first,I thought there was a lot of body filler dust in this car after it came from the paint shop. But it turned out to be a lot of bicarbonate of sod,used to blast the old paint off. This my 2nd least favourite method of paint stripping as it leaves residue in nooks and cranny’s .Another thing it does it corrodes the wiring inside the insulation . This is the 2nd Mercedes i have worked on with this problem . A humid day and the electrics of a car cease working as verdi gris builds up on the pins in the various plugs. Inside the rear area after the first attempt at cleaning the BiCarb out .Note the unpainted rear panel

…..Making a start at cleaning up the interior,eventually it all has to come out to get rid of all traces of the damned BiCarb.

Note the condition of the wood dash now. it will all have to come out to be repaired.

Close up of the dash ,rust on the steering wheel boss is caused by the soda . All stuff under the dash is going to be removed to clean up the rust.

With the wheel and instruments out the extent of the intrusion of this stuff can be seen more clearly.

Back of the instrument cluster . The whole cluster will need to come apart to get rid of the soda that has gotten inside .

it even got inside the steering column where it has eaten out the horn contacts..The gear lever and indicator stalk have gotten rusty too.

This is the INSIDE of the crash ad on the lower part of the dash . it was full of Soda.

Imagine this stuff coming outr of the dash as the car was driving along!!.

With the damaged wood removed  the soda was even bwetween the dash frame and the wood!.

Look at all that shit everywhere under the covering!.

Now for the really serious stuff .

This is the heater motor, Locked solid and corroded inside because of the soda . The air con motor is in the same statre with soda all through the heater and it’s ducting. 

All of the dash switches will have to come apart now to make sure they are going to work correctly

This thing has been going on for years. But today i lifted the body up and placed the chassis underneath so i can check for clearance ,fit and modifications that may be required .

The chassis is still mounted on the rotisserie where it has been for almost 3 years……

This is a close up of the left rear quarter panel bottom. An interesting use of silver foil and bog (bondo) to fill a rust patch. The inside isn’t rusted through but it looks as though i may need to make new panels to suit. 

The patch can be seen here on the bottom. That primer was on the car when i bought it in Tennessee.

Left rear needs a fair amount of work ,might be easier to weld in a new panel . N

Not too much better this side with someone having bashed a dent out in past ….with a rock i think. 

This is the right side panel ,normally there is a seam where the sill is joined to side panel . In this case the whole lot was brazed together then bogged over. i removed the sills and found they had been cut from another car..

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This is the front of the right hand rear wheel house .Not as rusty as the floors were but very close. This needs to be kept to maintain the strength of the body side. So…more repairs and new parts to be made.

Left hand inner panel with part of the left wheel house . Not too bad either .

one last view before the hard stuff begins.

Part of the paint work has been done ,it’s a daihatsu colour apparently and it’s VERY white.

just need to fit the doors and it’s mobile again….

i have been keeping this unusual Old mercedes for use as a shop hack, but i have basically run out of space. It started life in Victoria an Australian built 190C sedan. Sometime in the 1970’s someone converted it into a Station wagon and it remained in the Schnell Family as thier family car until 1992.

it was taken off the road around this time for an engine rebuild which was never finished. i bought it in 2010 as an unfinished project. I fitted a low mileage 240D engine and auomatic trans,W108 diff with 4 wheel disc brakes and a disc brake front end .The wheels are 15″ heavy duty rims .

Over the years i have done so many little jobs on this car i have basically forgotten most of them. LOL!.

Left front chassis rail welded and seam sealed before undercoat and painting. In this shot the new jacking point can be seen clearly .With zinc rich paint and zincanneal metal,the jack oointd should last as long as the car now with no worries about them rusting out in future.

Right Front Chassis and drivers side floor welded in a seam sealed …These will never rust again!